|
|
The
Setup: Business is booming at Akie's, a family
restaurant in Nerima Sakae Cho, and it's all
because of the new waitress, one Natsume Atsuko.
(Although I bet it helps that the restaurant is
air-conditioned. It's the kind of hot weather that
drives normally sane people to try to sit inside
their refrigerators.) She's working there so she
can buy a new bike for Ryunosuke after crashing his
old one. Arisa and Kyoko's air conditioner has
crashed too, and payday isn't till the end of the
month so they can't afford to have it fixed. When
they take refuge in Akie's, things get a little
wiggy. Of course, it's that stupid catgirl's fault,
right? Any action they take in this matter will be
totally unauthorised by Akiko - she owns Akie's and
is delighted by how good Nuku Nuku is for business!
Has the world gone mad? No, just Arisa and
Kyoko...
My
Review and Thoughts: This may just be the best
episode of the whole OAV in terms of making you
laugh until you wet your pants. It's completely
insane, of course, and it takes true style to be
this unfettered by logic! (For example, why doesn't
Nuku Nuku recognise Arisa and Kyoko when they
disguise themselves by dressing like schoolgirls
and wearing their hair slightly differently? Never
mind!)
Another
nice thing about this episode is that it doesn't go
for the obvious source of comedy, Nuku Nuku
klutzing up at waitressing. Instead, she's
perfectly good at it, and things only get crazy
because of Arisa and Kyoko's involvement. You have
to admire how tightly and well Phase OV uses one
location - why, it almost observes the Aristotelian
Unities! (Ancient Greek rules of drama. One of them
was that the main events of a play must take place
within one day, in one location. Understandably,
no-one pays much attention to them any more. See,
this website's educational too!)
For
me, the jewels of this episode are the dismal
gaggle of teenage boys who worship Nuku Nuku and
become convinced that Kyusaku is 'an evil
middle-aged jerk with a Lolita complex' - Nuku
Nuku's lover, and Ryunosuke is her child! The
overblown drama of their leader, a boy with square
spectacles and crooked teeth, is especially
delightful. And then, of course, there are the
Giant Twin Mongolian Warrior Chefs - the restaurant
cooks who beat up Arisa and Kyoko in no uncertain
terms. (I don't know that they're Mongolian,
they just look it.) One review I've read criticises
this episode for making light of violence against
women, but in general, Nuku Nukumakes light
of all violence - you can't pick on just
this example as objectionable. Like Team Rocket in
Pokémon (another series I
love), Arisa and Kyoko always bounce back
from whatever physical ordeals they endure - and,
in this case, give as good as they get.
Like
Phase OIII, this episode is tremendously cathartic
in terms of firepower discharged. Arisa and Kyoko
are simply glorious in their madness. Add to this
the spectacle of Nuku Nuku tripping out on catnip
and you have yourself a mighty fine time, my
friend!
Back
to Story page
Home
|
|
